Munich: The Edge of War (2021)

Implausible and Disappointing - Munich: The Edge of War review by GI

Jeremy Irons is great as Neville Chamberlain in this historical espionage drama that I otherwise found rather boring and somewhat annoying. Set around the famous Munich treaty between Chamberlain and Hitler (Ulrich Matthes) it's the story of two old Oxford buddies, Hugh (George MacKay), now the Prime Minister's private secretary and Paul (Jannis Niewöhner), a German who is a translator for Hitler and trying to expose the Nazi regime to the British. The plot centres around a secret document that Paul gives to Hugh and that MI6 want. It's all totally illogical as these two amateurs, with no training and no proper instructions faff around looking suspicious beyond belief. Hugh even puts the secret document in his hotel room drawer for goodness sake! MacKay, usually so good, does a lot of nail biting and fretting and of course there's a facially scarred Nazi getting very nosy about them. History is rewritten to suppose that Chamberlain had a cunning plan all along in his appeasement policy towards Hitler and that he knew war was inevitable. Utter nonsense. The women characters are given very little to do and the threat level never rises above a degree or two, you're more likely to groan at the stupidity of the two main protagonists. Oh and Hitler was never that thin! A big disappointment.